Now up to $462 million. The FY23 rankings will come out in December, but by FY22, numbers that would rank #63 (up from #70) and just ahead of Princeton University.
showme.missouri.edu
I'd like to give you a brief summary of the situation for context. Mizzou is a longtime member of the AAU, which was once an invitation-only group of the top 50 or so research universities in North America, although membership has now expanded to 70 members. For most of its history, Mizzou was a legit member of the AAU in that it was a top 50-ish research university. As recently as 1994, they were still ranked in the 50s in research. But in the late 90s and 2000s, due to state budget cuts and university leadership that didn't prioritize research, Mizzou fell off significantly. They fell all the way down to #88 in the rankings. Several similarly ranked AAU schools, including Nebraska, Iowa State, and Syracuse, have been kicked out due to insufficient research. Mizzou was put on notice that they might be kicked out, too. And we would have, except Mizzou has made a concerted effort to improve over the last ten years. Mun Choi, when hired, was tasked with fixing this. There was an initial effort that made some progress. But then a couple of big things happened in the last few years. Mizzou built the NextGen Precision Health Research Center, and they also started the MizzouForward campaign, which is designed to pump $1.5 billion into expanding research at Mizzou over ten years. We're on year 2 of that 10-year plan.
As I said, we're up to $462 million now, which is almost double where we were ten years ago. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations in some previous threads, and I estimated that we should probably get into the mid $500MMs by the end of this MizzouForward campaign, which would get us to around the upper 50s in the rankings. The next step after that would be the new research reactor, which, as I understand, is the next big priority and very expensive. If that gets off the ground, it should lead to another big increase in research that could very well get us into the top 50.
Year-by-year gains, ten consecutive years of growth
FY14 +$1M
FY15 +$10M
FY 16 +$33M
FY17 +$13M
FY18 +$2M
FY19 +$15M
FY20 +$22M
FY21 +$57M
FY22 +$43M
FY23 +$30M
Total gain: $226M per year
With all of this improvement I think our chances of getting kicked out of the AAU are pretty much zero at this point as long as we stay the course. I guess if the BOC fires Choi and cancels MizzouForward and reverses course on research that would throw a wrench into things but I don't think that's going to happen.
MU secures record research spending, capping 10 consecutive years of growth
Milestone reached through discoveries and innovations in agriculture, medicine, education, journalism and other areas that are improving lives throughout Missouri and around the world.
I'd like to give you a brief summary of the situation for context. Mizzou is a longtime member of the AAU, which was once an invitation-only group of the top 50 or so research universities in North America, although membership has now expanded to 70 members. For most of its history, Mizzou was a legit member of the AAU in that it was a top 50-ish research university. As recently as 1994, they were still ranked in the 50s in research. But in the late 90s and 2000s, due to state budget cuts and university leadership that didn't prioritize research, Mizzou fell off significantly. They fell all the way down to #88 in the rankings. Several similarly ranked AAU schools, including Nebraska, Iowa State, and Syracuse, have been kicked out due to insufficient research. Mizzou was put on notice that they might be kicked out, too. And we would have, except Mizzou has made a concerted effort to improve over the last ten years. Mun Choi, when hired, was tasked with fixing this. There was an initial effort that made some progress. But then a couple of big things happened in the last few years. Mizzou built the NextGen Precision Health Research Center, and they also started the MizzouForward campaign, which is designed to pump $1.5 billion into expanding research at Mizzou over ten years. We're on year 2 of that 10-year plan.
As I said, we're up to $462 million now, which is almost double where we were ten years ago. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations in some previous threads, and I estimated that we should probably get into the mid $500MMs by the end of this MizzouForward campaign, which would get us to around the upper 50s in the rankings. The next step after that would be the new research reactor, which, as I understand, is the next big priority and very expensive. If that gets off the ground, it should lead to another big increase in research that could very well get us into the top 50.
Year-by-year gains, ten consecutive years of growth
FY14 +$1M
FY15 +$10M
FY 16 +$33M
FY17 +$13M
FY18 +$2M
FY19 +$15M
FY20 +$22M
FY21 +$57M
FY22 +$43M
FY23 +$30M
Total gain: $226M per year
With all of this improvement I think our chances of getting kicked out of the AAU are pretty much zero at this point as long as we stay the course. I guess if the BOC fires Choi and cancels MizzouForward and reverses course on research that would throw a wrench into things but I don't think that's going to happen.
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